 Nantes Cathedral
Nantes is the capital of the Pays de la Loire région.
Nantes is a city in western France, near the Atlantic coast, with 711,120 inhabitants in the metropolitan area at the 1999 census. It is also the most important city of historic Brittany, though now a part of the modern Pays de la Loire region.
Originally founded as a town by the Celtic tribe named Namneti around 70 BCE, it was conquered by Julius Caesar in 56 BCE and named Portus Namnetus. Christianised in the 3rd century CE, Nantes was successively invaded by the Saxons (around 285), the Franks (around 500), the Britons (in the 6th and 7th centuries) and the Normans (in 843). In 937, Alain Barbe-Torte, grandson of the last king of Brittany who was expelled by Norris, drove them out and founded the duchy of Brittany.
Nantes is located on the banks of the Loire river, at the confluence of the Erdre and the Sèvre Nantaise, near the river's mouth, 55 km (35 mi) from the Atlantic Ocean. The city was built in a place where many branches of the Loire river created several islands, but most of those branches were filled in at the beginning of the 20th century (and the confluence with the Erdre river diverted and covered) due to the increasing car traffic.
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